Is it ever safe to make saves outside of the pause menu?

[PresidentDylan5]

I'm not sure whether to put this in 'General Discussion' or 'Technical Support' since this is more of an open question rather than a request for help. I'm just looking for some advice regarding game saves; mods like Autosave Manager add the option to both automatically save as well as save through a hotkey. This can be configured to make 'manual saves' which supposedly makes it the same as saving through the pause menu. However, I have also heard that it is the pause menu itself that makes a stable save, making this option just as dangerous as normal autosaves and quicksaves.

The two explanations that I have heard are these; the first is that autosaves and quicksaves pause scripts to save them in a staggered fashion to make saving quicker, which means that various scripts are stopped at different times and are desynced over time, while manual saves pause them at the same time so don't produce this problem. The other explanation is that all types of saves work in the same way and the only reason that manual saves are safer is because they are made through the pause menu, which isn't pauses all scripts. In the first instance, the hotkey manual save feature of Autosave Manager will produce stable saves, while in the second it does not.

So what are your opinions on this? Is there any solid information on this? On another note, are the saves produced by SafeAutoSave any safer? I can't find any information on this mod other than what's in the description; the posts section seems to be disabled and I can't find a single thread on it.

Thanks for any responses :)

 

Autosave Manager: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/34842

 

SafeAutoSave: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/64413/?

[jones177]

Hi

 

If you have a powerful computer with the game on fast media you will not have any trouble with any kind of save.

 

If you do not have the resources to execute the save you will CTD. For that reason auto saves or load door saves are the least safe. Quick saves are usually executed before an event & there may not be enough resources for the event & the save.

The safest save is a console save because action is stopped.

 

A lot of save issues are hardware related. Most HDs & even some SSDs are designed to move small amounts data fast. Their onboard possessors choke on too many large files & their performance degrades rapidly over time. Performance HDs & SSDs designed for video editing & servers fair much better. For saves on modded open world games it is best to use HDs & SSDs that have high burst write speeds on files over a megabyte. I use the Tech Report web site for comparisons.

 

Later

[Project579]

Even the worse SSD is not going to have problems if you are not moving stuff in background at the same time. I use Autosave manager but i found out that using the option to save event names bugs out the system and the old incremental saves don't get deleted (I had 600+ saves for 1 character).

 

Even on HDD Skyrim never corrupted a save and my saves weight more then 35MB.(I have 2 6TB WD Red PRO HDD in RAID 1(Bought them because they only had those in stock :laugh: :laugh: )

 

Anyway the best possible way to save is using the console, like jones177 said.

[PresidentDylan5]

Thanks for the responses :). I've generally been ok with stability when actually making the save, but what about long term stability? Apparently autosaves and quicksaves (and maybe just saving outside the pause menu) cause scripts to become desynced, a bigger problem with script heavy builds, which can cause problems over time. I'll probably play safe and use the pause menu from what you say though.

Also, somehow I just remembered that skyrim saves are made to the My Games folder which for me is on a hard drive (my ssd is my secondary drive). I just looked into moving it but it seems that I'd need to move my entire documents folder which I wouldn't want to do. My hard drive is a black western digital which apparently is pretty fast anyway, but any ideas to move the save folder would be appreciated.

 

Also thanks for the heads up on Autosave Manager :).

[Project579]

I don't think there is a way to move the save but you have your OS installed into an HDD pretty strange choice.

Edited September 4, 2016 by Project579

[PresidentDylan5]

I wanted to save space on my SSD so I reinstalled my OS onto my hard drive.

[Project579]

but doing so you lost performance on every side.

[PresidentDylan5]

I know I boot slower but surely I keep the performance of the SSD when running games on it?

 

Edit: I think we're getting sidetracked :D

Edited September 4, 2016 by PresidentDylan5

[Project579]

Not really your OS is installed on an HDD this means every resource that the game needs from the OS (libraries, drivers) is slower, your system to function needs to always pass through the OS by having it on an HDD you are decreasing performance in every front. It is more complex then that but I think I've got the point.

Edited September 4, 2016 by Project579

[PresidentDylan5]

Alright thanks I'll keep that in mind, just not sure it's big enough to fit the games I want on it with the os as well.